Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- about_us [2024/05/29 06:48] – [2.5. There Is No Necessity To Live Under The Control Of Necessity.] cassiusamicus
+++ about_us [2024/05/29 06:50] (current) – [2.10. By "Pleasure" We Mean All Experience That Is Not Painful] cassiusamicus
@@ Line 96: / Line 96: @@
   - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/board/586-the-swerve-its-nature-and-effects/|Discussion Forum]]
-==== 2.6.   He Who Says "Nothing Can Be Known" Knows Nothing.   ====
+==== 2.6. He Who Says "Nothing Can Be Known" Knows Nothing. ====
   - Major Implications
@@ Line 108: / Line 108: @@
   - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/board/763-knowledge-is-possible/|Discussion Forum]]
+==== 2.7. All Sensations Are "True." ====
+  - Major Implications: Error does not occur in the senses, but in the mind in forming opinions about what the sensations are reporting.
+  - Citations:
+      - Epicurus to Herorodut X 51b] (Yonge) "And, on the other side, error could not be possible, if we did not receive some other motion also, a sort of initiative of intelligence connected, it is true, with direct representation, but going beyond that representative. These conceptions being connected with direct perception which produces the representation, but going beyond it."
+      - Epicurus On Nature Book 28, Sedley trans, fr. 13, col. 6 inf. - "I also frequently reflected that if, when I raised difficulties which someone might have turned against us, he should claim that what used to be assimilated from ordinary language was the same as used to be practiced in the written work, many might well conclude that in those days false opinion was represented in that language, whether through an empirical process, an image-based process, or a theoretical process, or through a non-empirical process, not following one of our current divisions, but simply arising from an internal movement; but that now, because the means of expression is adapted to additional ends, discrimination provides a lead towards the truth. However, let no one ever try to get even with you by linking with you any trace of this suspicion; but [turn] to the entire faculty of empirical reasoning…
+      - (Aetius 4.8.10) “Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus say that sensation and thought arise in the soul from images that approach from outside, for neither of these can occur to anyone without the image falling upon him.”
+      - (Aetius 4.9.5 - 6) “Epicurus says that every sensation and every impression is true, but of the opinions some are true and some false; and sensation gives us a false picture in one respect only, namely with regard to objects of thought; but the impression does so in two respects, for there is impression of both sense objects and objects of thought. Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Epicurus, and Heraclides say that the particular sensations of their own object occur in accordance with the matching sized of the pores, each of the sense objects corresponding to each sense.”
+      - Notes:
+      - Discussion Forum
+==== 2.8. Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself - All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation. ====
+  - Major Implications:
+      - Absolute ideas of good and evil, as well as virtue, are not valid because such things do not have an independent existence in reality.
+      - Good and evil are relevant only to living beings.
+      - Justice is relative to the individuals involved and is not the same for all people at all times, and at all places.
+      - What it just at some times for some persons will change with circumstances.
+      - Justice is but one example of a "virtue," and just as there is no absolute justice there is no absolute virtue.
+  - Citations:
+      - **Letter to Menoeceus [124]**
+        - //Bailey//: "Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us. **For __all good and evil consists in sensation__,**  but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality."
+        - //Hicks//: "Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing to us,**__for good and evil imply sentience__**  , and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality."
+        - //Inwood-Gerson//: "Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. **__For all good and bad consists in sense-experience__,**  and death is the privation of sense-experience. Hence, a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality."
+        - //Epicurus Wiki (Epicurism.info)//: " Accustom yourself to thinking that death is no concern to us. __All things good and bad are experienced through sensation__, but sensation ceases at death. So death is nothing to us, and to know the truth of this makes a mortal life happy – not by adding infinite time, but by removing the desire for immortality."
+        - Epicurus' Principal Doctrine 33
+          - Bailey: _ckgedit_QUOT___Justice never is anything in itself__, but in the dealings of men with one another, in any place whatever, and at any time, it is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.
+        - Epicurus' Principal Doctrine 36
+          - Bailey: "In its general aspect, justice is the same for all, for it is a kind of mutual advantage in the dealings of men with one another; but with reference to the individual peculiarities of a country, or any other circumstances, __the same thing does not turn out to be just for all__."
+        - Epicurus' Principal Doctrine 37
+          - Bailey: "Among actions which are sanctioned as just by law, that which is proved, on examination, to be of advantage, in the requirements of men's dealings with one another, has the guarantee of justice, __whether it is the same for all or not__. But if a man makes a law, and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men's dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice. And even if the advantage in the matter of justice shifts from one side to the other, but for a while accords with the general concept, it is nonetheless just for that period, in the eyes of those who do not confound themselves with empty sounds, but look to the actual facts."
+        - Epicurus' Principal Doctrine 38:
+          - Bailey: "Where, provided the circumstances have not been altered, actions which were considered just have been shown not to accord with the general concept, in actual practice, then they are not just. But where, when circumstances have changed, the same actions which were sanctioned as just no longer lead to advantage, they were just at the time, when they were of advantage for the dealings of fellow-citizens with one another, but subsequently__ they are no longer just, when no longer of advantage__."
+  - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/board/399-the-virtue-of-nature-no-absolute-virtue/|Discussion Forum]]
+  - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/board/399-the-virtue-of-nature-no-absolute-virtue/|Discussion Forum]]
+==== 2.9. Pleasure is The Guide of Life. ====
+  - Major Implications:
+      - Neither supernatural gods nor ideal forms nor logic or rationalism are the guides of life.
+  - Citations:
+      - As to the definition of Pleasure, see the following citations and the related answer in the [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/faq-question/13-pleasure-what-is-the-epicurean-definition-of-pleasure/|FAQ List]]:
+        - Pleasure is one of the feelings, of which there are only two - pleasure and pain:
+          - //**__Diogenes Laertius 10:34__ **//  : ”//The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“//
+          - //**__On Ends 1:30__ **//  : ”//Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. __Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain__?//
+        - Given that there are only two feelings, you are feeling one or the other at all times if you are feeling anything at all:
+          - //**__On Ends 1:38__ **//  : //Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. __Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain__. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.“//
+        - As to pleasure and pain being separate and unmixed in any particular feeling:
+          - //**__[[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/entry/14-pd03/|PD03__ ** //]]__ **// : ”//The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. __Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once__//  .“
+        - All of those taken together show that Epicurus did not limit pleasure to what we generally think of as sensory stimulation, but included within pleasure all states of awareness of life that are not felt to be painful. You can see an explicit example of that here in regard to discussion of one's hand in its normal state of affairs, whenever it is not in some affirmative pain:
+          - //**__On Ends 1:39__ **//  : //For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. __For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure__.//
+        - This position is asserted by comparing the conditions of two people who are not in pain, but who are seemingly in very different conditions: A host at a party who is pouring wine to a guest who is drinking it. Here is the example:
+          - //**__On Ends 2:16__ **//  : //“This, O Torquatus, is doing violence to one's senses; it is wresting out of our minds the understanding of words with which we are imbued; for who can avoid seeing that these three states exist in the nature of things: first, the state of being in pleasure; secondly, that of being in pain; thirdly, that of being in such a condition as we are at this moment, and you too, I imagine, that is to say, neither in pleasure nor in pain; in such pleasure, I mean, as a man who is at a banquet, or in such pain as a man who is being tortured. What! do you not see a vast multitude of men who are neither rejoicing nor suffering, but in an intermediate state between these two conditions? No, indeed, said he; I say that all men who are free from pain are in pleasure, and in the greatest pleasure too. __Do you, then, say that the man who, not being thirsty himself, mingles some wine for another, and the thirsty man who drinks it when mixed, are both enjoying the same pleasure?”__// __[__Torquatus objects to the question as quibbling but the implicit answer is "yes" based on the condition of "not being thirsty" and "the thirsty man who drinks" both being conditions of pleasure."]
+        - This means that Epicurus was defining __all__  conditions of awareness where pain is not present to be pleasure. It's significant to remember "conditions of awareness" because he is not saying that a rock, which is not feeling pain, to be feeling pleasure. Only the living can feel pleasure or pain, but when you and aware of your condition all of your feelings can be categorized as either painful or pleasurable. You can see this sweeping categorization stated specifically here:
+          - //**__On Ends 2:9__ **//  : Cicero: “…[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'” Torquatus: “Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be.”
+          - //**__On Ends 2:11: __ **//  Cicero: Still, I replied, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?” Torquatus: “Absolutely the same, indeed the negation of pain is a very intense pleasure, the most intense pleasure possible.”
+        - This is how Epicurus can say that the wise man is continuously feeling pleasure, and how he defines the absence of pain as the highest pleasure. He is not talking about the most intense stimulation, he is talking philosophically about the most pure and complete condition of pleasure where pleasure is defined as a condition where absolutely all pain is gone. The wise man is about to consider this condition to be the most complete pleasure even though it is not the most intense stimulation:
+          - //**__On Ends 1:56__ **//  :// By this time so much at least is plain, that the intensest pleasure or the intensest annoyance felt in the mind exerts more influence on the happiness or wretchedness of life than either feeling, when present for an equal space of time in the body. __We refuse to believe, however, that when pleasure is removed, grief instantly ensues, excepting when perchance pain has taken the place of the pleasure; but we think on the contrary that we experience joy on the passing away of pains, even though none of that kind of pleasure which stirs the senses has taken their place; and from this it may be understood how great a pleasure it is to be without pain__. [57] But as we are elated by the blessings to which we look forward, so we delight in those which we call to memory. Fools however are tormented by the recollection of misfortunes; wise men rejoice in keeping fresh the thankful recollection of their past blessings. Now it is in the power of our wills to bury our adversity in almost unbroken forgetfulness, and to agreeably and sweetly remind ourselves of our prosperity. But when we look with penetration and concentration of thought upon things that are past, then, if those things are bad, grief usually ensues, if good, joy.//
+          - //**__On Ends 1:62__** ////: But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. __Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains__. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. __And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.__ //
+  - As to Pleasure being the guide of life:
+      - **Lucretius Book Two [167]:**
+        - //Munro//: "But some in opposition to this, ignorant of matter, believe that nature cannot without the providence of the gods, in such nice conformity to the ways of men, vary the seasons of the year and bring forth crops, aye and all the other things, which **__divine pleasure, the guide of life__**  , prompts men to approach, escorting them in person and enticing them by her fondlings to continue their races through the arts of Venus, that mankind may not come to an end."
+        - //Rouse://  "But some in opposition to this, knowing nothing of matter, believe that without the gods’ power nature cannot with so exact conformity to the plans of mankind change the seasons of the year, and produce crops, and in a word all else which **__divine pleasure, the guide of life__ **__,__  persuades men to approach, herself leading them and coaxing them, through the ways of Venus, to beget their generations, that the human race may not come to an end."
+        - //Humphries//: "Some people do not know how matter works. They think that nature needs the will of the gods to fit the seasons of the year so nicely to human needs, to bring to birth the crops And other blessings, which __our guide to life, the radiance of pleasure__, makes us crave through Venus' agency. "
+      - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/entry/83-epicurus-letter-to-menoeceus/|Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus]] [129]:
+        - Bailey: [129] And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and __from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good__.
+  - //Notes//: There is no higher good than pleasure, no greater evil than pain.
+  - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/board/737-pleasure-is-desirable-the-alpha-and-omega-the-guide-of-life/|Discussion Forum]]
+====   ====
+==== 2.10. By "Pleasure" We Mean All Experience That Is Not Painful ====
+  - Major Implications:
+  - Citations:
+      - Diogenes Laertius X-34 : ”The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“
+      - On Ends Book One, 30 : ”Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?
+      - On Ends Book One, 38 : Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.“
+      - On Ends Book One, 39 : For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure.
+      - On Ends Book Two, 9 : Cicero: “…[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'” Torquatus: “Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be.”
+      - On Ends, Book Two, 11: Cicero: Still, I replied, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?” Torquatus: “Absolutely the same, indeed the greatest, beyond which none greater can possibly be.” [Plane idem, inquit, et maxima quidem, qua fieri nulla maior potest. (Cic. Fin. 2.11)]
+      - On Ends Book Two, 16 : “This, O Torquatus, is doing violence to one's senses; it is wresting out of our minds the understanding of words with which we are imbued; for who can avoid seeing that these three states exist in the nature of things: first, the state of being in pleasure; secondly, that of being in pain; thirdly, that of being in such a condition as we are at this moment, and you too, I imagine, that is to say, neither in pleasure nor in pain; in such pleasure, I mean, as a man who is at a banquet, or in such pain as a man who is being tortured. What! do you not see a vast multitude of men who are neither rejoicing nor suffering, but in an intermediate state between these two conditions? No, indeed, said he; I say that all men who are free from pain are in pleasure, and in the greatest pleasure too. Do you, then, say that the man who, not being thirsty himself, mingles some wine for another, and the thirsty man who drinks it when mixed, are both enjoying the same pleasure?”
+      - Notes:
+      - Discussion Forum:
+==== 2.11.   Life Is Desirable, But Unlimitied Time Contains No Greater Pleasure Than Limited Time.   ====
+  - Major Implications: Life is generally desirable because it generally affords the opportunity for pleasure.
+  - Citations:
+      - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/entry/29-pd19/|PD19]]. Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure.
+      - Letter to Menoeceus 126: "And he who counsels the young man to live well, but the old man to make a good end, is foolish, not merely because of the desirability of life, but also because it is the same training which teaches to live well and to die well."
+      - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/entry/28-pd18/|PD18]]. The pleasure in the flesh is not increased when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures, and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind.
+      - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/entry/30-pd20/|PD20]]. The flesh perceives the limits of pleasure as unlimited, and unlimited time is required to supply it. But the mind, having attained a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good of the flesh and its limits, and having dissipated the fears concerning the time to come, supplies us with the complete life, and we have no further need of infinite time; but neither does the mind shun pleasure, nor, when circumstances begin to bring about the departure from life, does it approach its end as though it fell short, in any way, of the best life.
+      - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/entry/31-pd21/|PD21]]. He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want, and makes the whole of life complete, is easy to obtain, so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.
+      - Notes:
+      - [[https://www.epicureanfriends.com/ https://www.epicureanfriends.com/board/737-pleasure-is-desirable-the-alpha-and-omega-the-guide-of-life/|Discussion Forum:]]